Since 1964 ...

Abstract

Memoir essay looking back on Keneally's career and shifts in the Australian literary landscape. Keneally concludes: 'if I were given the chance to make a statement before the Australian literary bench, again more a 1964 idea than a 2014 one, I would say this. "Your Honour, I didn’t die after The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith. My work thereafter has been of sufficient technical and creative value as to attract interest, and yet, in part through my own erratic choices, it has not. I think, for example, that the novel, The Playmaker, is a book of far more importance than The Chant. I acknowledge that the writer is the least reliable commentator on these matters, but from within my skin there has been a steady continuity in my work where, perhaps because of the egregious Schindler book, others have seen a fracture, a before-and-after. If I had a wish, it would be that my more recent work be viewed with the same interest as my earlier, because I think it so much better"'.